Where Do We Really Go When We Die ? (page 3)

greendawn

I am not so sure about this. Biblically both sides seem to be covered ie death means a total though temporary end of all awareness, or death is the beginning of a new life in another dimension beyond the earth.

I tend to believe in the first and more pessimistic interpretation but what difference does it make if there will be a resurrection? Once dead, time ceases to matter, 10 years or 1000 years for someone without awareness is the same thing.

Even the saints will need to be resurrected.

CyrusThePersian

I, like many, would sincerely like to believe that my deceased relatives are "out there" somewhere and that someday I will be reunited with them, but look at the evidence.

Our brain has the neurons and synapses and cells which control our lives . What we are is in and of our brain. There is no "spirit" that exists apart from our brain. If a person gets a brain injury or has Alzheimer's, he cannot function. If we had a soul or spirit apart from our body, why can't that "spirit' overcome those injuries and continue to be sentient? Or for that matter what need would a soul have for a phsyical brain if that brain was unnecessary for the soul's existence? (i.e. after death)

The evidence, the concrete evidence shows that when we die, our heart stops beating, our lungs stop breathing, and our brain stops working. Our hopes, our dreams, our loves and hates die... when we die.

Sad but true.

CyrusThePersian

Skimmer

There's an interesting book _The Physics of Immorality, Modern Cosmology, God, and the Resurrection of the Dead_ by physicist Frank Tipler. It explores the idea that, since information is never truly destroyed, information about everything a person was or did can be collected and used to re-constitute that person.

I have a copy (somewhere) and it's a good read. Excerpts and reactions can be found on the net.

Narkissos

I tend to think that "we" are a temporary (and ever-changing) construct of many things that were around long before "we" were there (atoms, molecules, genes, language, symbols, gestures, expressions, feelings) and that will be around long after "we" have disappeared -- although slightly otherwise. In that sense, we already outlive ourselves inasmuch as we give, or communicate, something of ourselves to others, whether we are aware of it or not.

But that's my way of construing it.

When people speak of apparitions, or feeling a "presence" etc., are they describing something else, or another way of experiencing/expressing the same reality?

I don't know. I can't know.

nvrgnbk

What Nark said.

There is an undeniable cyclic nature of the Universe: creation out of destruction, Life out of Death.

Characterized as spiritual or physical, that is real.

Skimmer

A review of Tipler's book: http://www.doesgodexist.org/JanFeb96/PhysicsOfImmorality.html

nvrgnbk

PhysicsOfImmorality

Sorry, Skimmer.

I couldn't resist.

Skimmer

A Freudian slip, but not mine. I just do copy and paste.

Terry

Where were you before you were born?

What is your first conscious memory of "you"?

That is key.

We are not necessary beings. We are contingent beings.

We depend upon conditions for our moment to moment continuation. We are not a "given".

Under certain conditions there are clouds and under certain conditions rain will follow....or not.

Where does the "white" go when the snow melts? That sort of thing.

We are entirely dependant upon the conditions which make us possible. If we suffer brain injury the consciousness is no longer possible and only the physical body and mere appearance of PERSON remain.

This can fool those standing by and watching.

How much of you can you lose and still be a "you" worth maintaining alive?

Remove your mobility and only your mind remains locked in a physical prison serving a hellish indeterminate sentence.

When we DIE the conditions for our consciousness no longer remain adeqate for us to continue as conscious, thinking personalities. The plugs are pulled one by one and we flicker like a TV screen with the antenna detached.

When we lose the signal there is only the random firings of nerve impulses and twitching muscle groups starved of direction and purpose.

It is this very specific contingency of the physical and the mental which makes possible the fragile and ephemeral phenomenon of human life.

Where, then, do we "go"?

There is no "go" and no "we".

The moment and the magic fade into the inky nothingness from which we emerged with that blinding howl of beingness forever silenced.

Where Do We Really Go When We Die ?

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